Innehållsförteckning för Issue 536 - 2024 från Australian HiFi

Soundbites While many of us probably left our appetite for renovation projects back in 2020, Bang & Olufsen has seemingly run with the newfound hobby. Having that year recreated 95 of its Beogram 4000c turntables from the '70s, it has now revived another classic from the past for limited-edition sale: the Beosound 9000 CD player. Only this time it isn’t solely a CD player (probably sensible) but a fully fledged music system. While the fully restored and reimagined six-disc CD changer from the '90s lies at its nostalgic heart, the Beosystem 9000c also comprises the company’s 2021-released Beolab 28 active wireless speakers and a Beoremote One control. The second project in the brand’s recreated classics series came from a desire to “demonstrate that a second-life product can be just as…

Soundbites If the height of your pandemic achievements -your honed banana bread recipe or hula-hoop PR, perhaps — was put into perspective by Taylor Swift writing and releasing two albums, or American comedian Bo Burnham’s awardwinning one-man musical, get a load of this: when Laurence Dickie, the speaker engineer behind the iconic Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus and now the technical director of the Vivid Audio brand he founded, was quarantined in a hotel room during the pandemic, he designed his dream loudspeakers: a five-way, 13-driver design that is now launching as Vivid Audio’s new flagships, the Moya 1. Look at the accompanying images and it’s hard not to stare in awe at those proprietary side-firing bass drivers, of which there are eight per tower, each one capable of handling 800…

Soundbites Dali’s reference $180,000 Kore loudspeakers, which launched back in 2022, have a lot to answer for. Firstly, the trickle-down technology from them helped to create the company’s more 'affordable' ($85,000) Epikore 11 floorstanders last year, and now we have an all-new Rubikore range that too gets a helping hand from those flagship beasts. The surround sound-friendly lineup consists of two floorstanders (Rubikore 6, Rubikore 8), one bookshelf model (Rubikore 2), one on-wall model (Rubikore On-Wall) and an LCR speaker (Rubikore Cinema). Both the On-Wall and Cinema include a rotatable hybrid tweeter module to provide extra placement flexibility. Across the range is a brand-new 6.5in double magnet mid/bass driver that uses Dali’s paper and wood fibre ‘Clarity Cone’; Rubikore 8 uses three per speaker while Rubikore 6 uses two. Rubikore…

On Test Topping DX9 Pro DAC & Headphone Amplifier DAC & Headphone Amplifier + • Immaculate sound • A plethora of connections • Easily readable displays − • Lacklustre manual RRP $2,199 Some five or six years ago, I began noticing talk online of Chinese manufacturer Topping. The brand appeared to focus on developing DACs and head-fi (headphone) electronics -nothing too surprising there. But the websites that scrutinise such things found stunningly good performance figures for these surprisingly affordable devices. In late 2020 — oh, weren’t those the days! — I found myself in need of a DAC and possessed fewer dollars than I would have liked, so I bought a low-cost Topping E30. It isn’t a headphone unit: it simply takes an optical, coaxial or USB digital audio signal…

Show Report Not many things would have descended on Sydney in greater numbers than millimetres of rainfall on the first weekend of April (150mm over 24 hours!), but hi-fi brands were indeed one of them. After a successful inaugural event last year, the Australian Hi-Fi Show returned to the Novotel Sydney Central Hotel to give Sydneysider audiophiles the opportunity to see and hear some of the best in audio and AV from Australia and all around the world. Brought to you by Australian Hi-Fi, What Hi-Fi? and Sound+Image magazines from Future Publishing, the three-day celebration of hi-fi and home cinema featured nearly 30 rooms of kit, which included an all-Aussie system costing the equivalent of five Teslas; AlsyVox ribbon speakers from Italy that delivered mind-blowing sound and got everyone talking;…

A quickfire question for you: how many vinyl pressing plants does Australia have? If you’ve just answered “zero”, having soundly assumed that the Land Down Under might exclusively import records from elsewhere, as it does cars, then I’m afraid to say you are incorrect. But don’t worry, you aren’t alone: that was my hesitant guess too when asked by a vinyl-loving family member during their recent visit to see me (and probably more so some record stores) in Melbourne. If your answer was “three”, give yourself a big fat full point to redeem at the next pub quiz whereby you mark your own sheet… presuming you didn’t Google it, you big cheat. (Or half a point if it was “two”, seeing as the third plant only began operating less than…

Sound Travels This time in our ‘Sound Travels’ series, Australian Hi-Fi magazine contributor Tom Waters visits one of the stalwarts of Sydney’s hi-fi scene, Len Wallis — the man behind the eponymous audio store in the Lower North Shore suburb of Lane Cove — about the many changes the audio market has seen over the years. For many decades, Wallis has consistently delivered the best of the best to the city’s audio community, and thankfully plans to continue doing so for years to come… Tell us a bit about how Len Wallis Audio started back in the late ‘70s… At that time I was working for Allied HiFi in Crows Nest. Unfortunately, things were not going well for the shop, and being worried about losing my job I suggested to…

Soundbites A silk-dome tweeter in a large surround dome with a dual balanced compression chamber, high-strength neodymium motor system and a non-reflective cast aluminium chamber. A 7.5-inch high-strength woofer with an Egyptian Papyrus diaphragm backed by a copper/neodymium highforce factor motor, meticulously crafted from copper and a high-purity neodymium alloy. Cabinets of double-wall construction with a solid oak outer layer, made by skilled local cabinet makers from materials sourced both locally and imported from Europe and North America. And crossover electronics made in-house from 100% film capacitors and hand-wound inductors. Those are the ingredients for the launch speaker model from a new Sydney-based marque, Atlas & Hurd. The 42cm-tall Tempest are two-way standmount speakers said to “honour the golden era of hi-fi — 1960s through the 1970s — with warmth…

The original Trapeze holds a special place in Audiovector’s history. That speaker model was the company’s first commercially successful product and helped to form the foundations of the brand it is today, not only in financial terms but also in technical aspects, such as the use of simple crossovers and the importance it places on linear phase response. That was 45 years ago. This new version is officially called the Trapeze Reimagined, or Trapeze Ri for short. Audiovector is keen to point out that they are not retro designs but indeed cutting-edge, modern loudspeakers that have simply been inspired by the past. The Trapeze Ri are squat three-way floorstanders, each standing 87.5cm tall and weighing a relatively hefty 50kg per pair. Their cabinet is made of specially chosen HDF (high-density…

To complement its core business as a subscription-based music management software platform, Roon makes hardware servers for its users to store and stream their music library. The company, which was recently acquired by Harman, recently announced its flagship Nucleus Titan server (as featured in the last issue), and now is introducing a much more affordable model, the Nucleus One, to complete a twostrong lineup. Roon promises audiophile sound quality and affordability from the Nucleus One, which costs $500 USD (approximately $780) — considerably less than the $6,299 Titan and the cheapest Roon server ever. It replaces the previous, pricier Nucleus server with “updated hardware” and a “cutting-edge performance” the company says is comparable to previous models. The Nucleus One offers space for 2.5-inch internal SATA drives (SSD or HDD) for…

On Test Adcom GFA-5705 Multi-channel Power Amplifier Multi-channel Power Amplifier + • Superb sound quality • Power aplenty • Strong build quality − • Big, black & heavy! • Requires ventilation RRP $5,799 Google the word ‘Adcom’ and the first generic ‘People Also Ask’ question the search engine serves up is ‘Is Adcom still in business?’ Adcom certainly still is in business, though rather than operating out of the United States, where the company was founded by Newt Chenin (see our column on Adcom’s history overleaf), it now operates out of Thailand. It’s owned by Everest World Company Ltd, which purchased the rights not only to the Adcom brand but also to Adcom’s intellectual property, including its circuit designs. Since these were pretty good designs (which is hardly surprising considering…

Hi-fi Primer So you have a strictly analogue or a digital-friendly system pride of place in your living room, likely comprising a source, stereo amplifier and pair of loudspeakers either way. But if it is the latter kind, you might consider adding another component: a dedicated DAC. And with either system type, if you spend considerable time listening to it through headphones, you may well benefit from adding an external headphone amplifier. Perhaps both upgrades are on the cards, or even one upgrade that will take care of both. So what does each do exactly and where would your money be best spent? What is a headphone amplifier? At its core, a headphone amplifier is an amplifier circuit that is specifically designed to drive headphones rather than speakers. That might…

The American Epic Sessions (2017) 108 minutes, YouTube In 2017, Jack White and other musicians including Elton John, Nas, Willie Nelson and Beck took part in a documentary called ‘The American Epic Sessions’, in which they replicated the recording process with the very first (and long-thought-lost) electrical sound system from 1925. This comprised one microphone, a six-foot amplifier rack, and a live recordcutting lathe powered by clockwork gears that used pulleys and a weight to drive them; it would take three minutes for the weight to hit the floor and the recording was finished — which no doubt explains pop songs’ traditional runtime of three minutes or under. Its one-take, time-limited nature meant that musicians and engineers of the time referred to the process as ‘catching lightning in a bottle’.…

Venerable British hi-fi brand ATC has announced a special limited run of two products in celebration of its 50th anniversary this year — the SCM20ASL Limited Edition active standmounts and C4 Sub Mk2 Limited Edition subwoofer. Only 150 pairs of the speakers and 20 units of the sub are available, so prospective buyers with cash to splash may want to get in on this exclusive release sharpish. The SCM20ASL LE are two-way actives featuring the company’s proprietary 15cm ‘Super Linear’ mid/bass driver alongside a 25mm ‘S-Spec’ dual-suspension tweeter. Their front baffle is adorned with “royal blue full-grain Napa leather” while the cabinet is finished in a high-gloss lacquer in dark blue, ATC's trademark colour. The bass driver is housed in a 20-litre sealed cabinet and fed 200 watts of continuous…

Soundbites Likely news to those who didn’t spy the latest loudspeaker system out of Brisbane at the Australian Hi-Fi Show in April, Stereotech has now designed, manufactured and released another Dellichord model, the FR2035. The distinct-looking active speakers see an FR35 bookshelf monitor atop (and powered by) an FR20 isobaric active bass module. You can see why the manufacturer refers to them as an ‘IsoActive’ system, then. The FR35 standmounts are also being released as a separate passive model, with owners having the flexibility to upgrade to the full FR2035 system in the future. Both of these latest launches build on the company’s FR6 medium-sized standmounts, which also fly the flag for isobaric technology. The larger FR2035 has been designed to offer big sound from relatively compact dimensions (95cm tall…

Soundbites Radia expansion Arcam created quite a stir when its new-look Radia Series of separates launched in October. The range introduced a fresh new design language for the brand and got off to a flyer, with seemingly good reviews across the board for the three stereo amplifiers and CD player. At High End Munich 2024, the British company took the wraps off three additions to the range. First up are two premium streaming amplifiers set to give Naim’s Uniti players a run for their money. Both the Arcam SA45 and SA35 feature Class G amplification, support hi-res audio and run off Arcam’s latest streaming platform. They also include a switchable MC/MM phono stage for connecting a turntable and an HDMI ARC socket for hooking up a telly. You can even…

In its almost 100-year history, Tannoy’s crowning moment is irrefutably its invention of the dual concentric driver, which sees a tweeter sit in the throat of the mid/bass unit for consistent dispersion and improved integration and phase behaviour. In the 77 years since the British company debuted the innovation at the London Radio Show, this driver has featured in more speakers from Tannoy (and other manufacturers) than anyone could reasonably count. Indeed, it remains very much at the heart of the legendary brand’s speaker lineup. One of the earlier Tannoy designs to make use of the dual concentric was the GRF Autograph in 1954, some ten years before the company’s famous Monitor Gold Dual Concentric range arrived. And now, Tannoy has flaunted a modern-day Autograph model ahead of its release…

Graph 1 shows the frequency response of the Audio Solutions Figaro M2 as measured by Newport Test Labs. The section of the trace below 1kHz was measured in-room using pink noise, with the trace representing the average of nine measurements taken in a grid with its central point on-axis with the tweeter. The trace above 1kHz is a single measurement made one metre on-axis from the tweeter, using a gating technique that replicates the response that would be obtained if the speaker had been measured in an anechoic chamber. You can see that the trace in Graph 1 is very linear, extending from 36Hz to 35kHz ±3dB. This is a truly excellent response. Note, too, that there is no ‘skew’ to the trace, showing that the bass/ midrange/treble balance is…

Portable Audio As we have seen throughout this series so far, any portable audio revolution is usually preceded by years, or even decades, of research and development before an idea reaches a level of maturity for it to take off. However, an idea of Toshiba electrical engineer Fujio Masuoka was so far-reaching that it would have ramifications well beyond the field of portable audio. As tech giants Sony and Philips were prepping the Compact Disc, Masuoka’s invention of fast-erase floating-gate memory would set in motion the development of the world’s first practical no-moving-parts data storage device. The global technology industry, portable audio in particular, was about to move into the fast lane. No moving parts Masuoka had already been quite prolific during his early days at Japanese tech titan Toshiba.…

Halcro rates the per-channel power output of the Eclipse Stereo as 180 watts into eight ohms and 350 watts into four ohms. With the Eclipse Stereo on its test bench, Newport Test Labs measured the 1kHz power output at 202 and 386 watts per channel into eight and four ohms respectively, so the power amplifier bettered its specification for both test loads. As you can see from the tabulated results, power output dropped to 196 watts into eight ohms when the test frequency was dropped down to 20Hz (when driving two channels), and to 365 watts when both channels were driven into four ohms at this same 20Hz frequency. While these are lower than the 1kHz power output results, they’re still comfortably higher than Halcro’s specification. Newport Test Labs measured…